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indiemcemopants

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Wednesday December 14, 2011 · 7:31 PM PST

2011/12/14 · 19:31

indiemcemopants

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Monday December 12, 2011 · 1:17 PM PST

2011/12/12 · 13:17

Having grown up as a minority in a pretty repressive environment in the deep South, aggressive taunts from heterosexuals in my community - my family, even - were a mainstay. You get used to it pretty early on in life because there's not much of a choice there; being out is life-threatening in that world and sometimes just supporting others who are like us can put those who are hidden at risk. And in this place, in too many places, heterosexuality is beaten into people's heads, literally and figuratively. It's in our churches. In our schools. For so long it was embedded in the framework of our military - as if bravery, if honor were heterosexual qualities. As if god-fearing religious people can only be straight.

This code was enforced with beatings, with outings, with shunning. It was enforced through the repression of the closet - as cold and evil a place as you'll find. We just instinctively knew that we were supposed to be heterosexual, that it was the right thing, and anything else would be tortured out of us, til we repented and agreed with this conservative life we were coerced and threatened into. The closet was far from a respite, it was never a secret, warm place where anyone could feel safe or secure. The closet was a forced 'institution', an expectation imposed by forces before we were ever born into existence.

indiemcemopants

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Sunday December 11, 2011 · 3:54 PM PST

2011/12/11 · 15:54

no image description available — Joseph Goebbels, Carlton Hotel, Switzerland (Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE (1933))

Joseph Goebbels, Carlton Hotel, Switzerland (Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE (1933))

The photo was taken in 1933 by LIFE magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt. One of his most memorable pictures, the portrait still casts its evil spell more than 70 years later. “The fierce arrogance of power, normally covered with false grace of good humor, shone through miraculously into Eisenstaedt’s film,” later wrote LIFE magazine. A Jew, Eisenstaedt himself remembered [the meeting, and photographed the moment when Goebbels learned that fact about him]: “He looked at me with hateful eyes and waited for me to wither. But I didn’t wither. If I have a camera in my hand, I don’t know fear.”

People aren't evil. It's not as if there's a certain section of the world, a specific segment of the population that is simply born evil and full of hatred for someone, some group that is unliked. As much as we'd like to pretend that hatred exists elsewhere, across the globe or somewhere faded into the recesses of history, hatred is taught and learned every second. It spreads quickly and deforms everything it touches; no one that encounters this black-hearted coldness can ever really be the same when hatred gets finished with them.

Hatred is a poison, ravaging humanity and desecrating the graves of those who fought so hard to eradicate it from human existence. When we learn it, when we experience it, we lose something about ourselves forever - hatred steals our hope from us. Even if we spend our lives erasing as much of it as humanly possible, exhausting ourselves working to heal divisions and to build enough commonality to get rid of it for good, it can seem bleak and hopeless to see this face again, in our daily lives, among our friends, our family, our community.

indiemcemopants

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Saturday December 10, 2011 · 12:21 PM PST

2011/12/10 · 12:21

I'm not sure this is going to be very helpful if he's trying to earn respect from the GOP base. Most of these people have spent debate after debate telling us why the policy is so bad and why they would immediately reverse it. And they can - the law is gone and the policy is administrative now, so any president can issue an executive order banning open service again. You'd think that he'd continue to capitalize on the fear of gay people staring at showering soldiers at least until the general election.

“How do you feel about gays serving openly in the military,” Romney answered: “That's already occurred and I'm not planning on reversing that at this stage.”
“But you're comfortable with it?”

“Um, I was not comfortable making the change during a period of conflict, by virtue of the complicating features of a new program in the middle of two wars going on, but those wars are winding down and moving in that direction at this stage no longer presents that problem.”

indiemcemopants

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Friday December 09, 2011 · 9:59 AM PST

2011/12/09 · 09:59

Yesterday was my appointment with the neurosurgeon to find out if the pain I've been experiencing is spine or nerve related and if it's something that would require surgery - possibly another spine surgery, when the last one paralyzed me. I didn't get much sleep during the two nights preceding it, and I was incredibly anxious.

The doctor looked at a lot of my scans (a little too quickly for my comfort, honestly, the first time he'd seen them was at the appointment and there were several.) I had to describe the pain and symptoms and got the chance to go into detail about what exactly it's like. It was good to be taken seriously since I had bad experiences with that before and it was nice to watch the guy pay such close attention to my symptoms.

He thinks I have some complications from shingles.

indiemcemopants

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Wednesday December 07, 2011 · 11:46 AM PST

2011/12/07 · 11:46

It's interesting how if you ask anyone about what happened when they came out to their parents, the parents' version and the kid's version always differ. The first time I 'came out' was when my parents read a letter I had written to a friend confiding in them that I like guys. So everyone totally freaked out. My stepdad was less surprising because he's a redneck who hated me for years before that happened. (I, apparently, am not a man because I like to read and write and be smart instead of just digging holes outside all the time.) My mom is a religious conservative Catholic and basically asked how I could "do that" to god and wondered if she could love me the same. Eventually she was making comments that I should be sent away and I'd come home to messages for returned calls about mental hospitals, et cetera.

But now? She says those things never happened and I must have just been very depressed, and that if I had a boyfriend I could even invite him over for dinner. She's totally okay with it, of course, and how could I ever think otherwise, I'm her son, she says.

I always thought it was strange. I can understand embarrassment at really freaking out and turning a difficult situation into what was basically hell for me. But at least admit your mistakes. At least tell me I didn't deserve that. That I deserve honesty. Nobody, least of all your kid, would expect that moment to go perfectly. It's so utterly terrifying and everything seems so bleak. You could lose everything. The number of gay teens who are homeless because their parents just 'got rid' of them like they were trash is astonishing. And whether or not you know those facts or precise numbers going in, intuitively, you understand that it could happen.

indiemcemopants

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Tuesday December 06, 2011 · 7:20 PM PST

2011/12/06 · 19:20

My mom just called and it was probably one of the weirdest conversations of my life. Her co-worker somehow managed to find "my blog" (I'm not sure if it's this one or the blogspot account I set up a long time ago, which I have not returned to in quite awhile.) She read it. Her co-worker told my mom that I'm a great writer, and my mom said something non-commital, 'yeah he told me he's been writing stuff' which is her way of dealing with me, I guess, and her co-worker stopped her and said, "No, he's a great writer. He needs to be writing. For pay. He's great at what he does."

Now, this is strange for several reasons. The timing is the most pertinent, though. I have had an incredibly depressing week. After getting out of surgery the doctor wanted to see me again, so I've been in pain, trying to schedule more appointments and trying not to think about the probable bad news I'm getting at the appointment with the neurosurgeon on Thursday. Thinking about life as always being about pain and hospitals and doctors, for years, or even decades, really can drain someone. You just think, is this, like, it? Surely this can't be everything that's going to happen from now on. I mean, I've been a good guy, I deserve better, right? And then life reassures you that it doesn't matter how good you are at all, you just get what you get.

(Incidentally, I watch House a lot, and he often says that and I always liked it, because it's so true - "people don't get what they deserve; they just get what they get." Much as you think this is a fair and just place, look at life through the eyes of a gay paraplegic stuck in the south (or, to be honest, pretty much any minority anywhere) and the illusion is shattered. (It's never the same after that.))

And you know, really, writing? Writing is already hard enough. I'm not one to write entire posts about how unfair life can be (and I'll be done with that part in just a second, but I'm getting to something, I promise) but I don't really have the best health and it makes a lot of things difficult.

indiemcemopants

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Saturday December 03, 2011 · 12:38 PM PST

2011/12/03 · 12:38

I wanted to post an update for my friends here who have been concerned with everything that has been going on with my health.

First, thanks so much for caring about everything that is going on with my health. I'm getting a lot of messages of concern and well-wishes (as are Nurse Kelley and Richard Lyon on my behalf) and constant offers to help me figure things out and see a doctor who will fix my pain and spinal cord issues. You people are all incredible and I'm really thankful. It's great to know you all care (especially considering my lack of real-life friends down here in south Alabama, it's pretty lonely.)

Yesterday I had outpatient surgery to remove some kidney stones I've had for a long time. It seems like for the past couple of years, any time a doctor was willing to address the problem of the stones, I always ran into other issues - infections, decubitus ulcers (pressure sores), nutrition issues - so they finally got rid of the damn things yesterday. It was a 20 minute surgery and there were not even any cuts involved. Everything went fine (in fact, the worst part was getting the IV since I have tiny veins.) The doctor said the stone was so big it had to be broken up into fifteen different pieces.

indiemcemopants

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Wednesday November 23, 2011 · 10:18 AM PST

2011/11/23 · 10:18

I have just written an update on my health situation (see this post for background info) twice now, and both times I lost the post. It is now 11:23 AM and I started about an hour ago. I'm sitting here in pain and I just want to get this update done. The first post was a rather lengthy and detailed update on my situation. Pages and pages of words. The second post was bullet points that were pretty detailed, but still, bullet points. I was frustrated and did not want to retype the first post all over again. And then I lost the second post. So now, I'm writing this on Wordpad. And it is not going to be very detailed and it'll probably come off as frustrated and a bit short and angry. I'm sorry about that.

* First, thank you all so much. I wrote that post just to inform a few friends about my situation so they'd know why I haven't been participating recently and why I've had problems returning emails. Then I got 800 tips on the tip jar and 400 comments, nothing but total support and empathy for my situation. I wasn't expecting that - I mean I know this community is great, you all helped me before to get a computer so I can continue blogging (and I'll never stop being grateful for this - writing and music are the two things keeping me sane and all my music is on my computer. I wouldn't have it without this place) - I just didn't expect the numbers to be so damn high. There's 1,300 people in the town where I live. So, it's pretty much comparable to almost my entire town caring about what I'm going through.

indiemcemopants

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Tuesday November 22, 2011 · 9:04 AM PST

2011/11/22 · 09:04

And here we go again. The New York Times is getting in on the stereotyping action this time. The article, in the Business Media/Advertising section is titled "A Community With Money? Of Course Marketers Want In on That" and it's full of the same type of mythology you might find in an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia:

Howard Buford, the president and chief executive for Prime Access, a multicultural advertising agency, said one factor favoring the group for advertisers is two-income households where both partners are men, who still make more on average than women.
“When you have a male couple, that effect gets amplified,” Mr. Buford said.

And while more LGBT couples are having children of their own or adopting children, Mr. Buford said many couples did not have children, leaving them with more disposable income and “disposable time” for travel and entertainment. The sour economy might also prompt brands to go beyond their usual general market targets, Mr. Buford said. “The need for sales and profitability is more compelling than, ‘Hmm, I wonder if we should do this.’ ”

See? Two men make money and childless gays make even more! We're really just swimming in the money here. Seriously, you should all be gay so you can get rich, too! Except that's not the case at all:

indiemcemopants

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Sunday November 20, 2011 · 7:55 PM PST

2011/11/20 · 19:55

One night a few weeks ago, I suddenly got a very high fever, uncontrollable shakes nausea, among other things. I decided to just wait, take some ibuprofen (which usually, for some reason, stops the shaking on the rare occasions when I have them) and sleep it off. So the next day when I still felt terrible and was still shaking and my heart was beating too fast I called an ambulance. To make this next part short, I was diagnosed with a kidney infection, bladder infection and blood infection as well as kidney stones that had been there for awhile but were apparently causing more of a problem. So, I got on antibiotics, stayed at the hospital, and after awhile I felt mostly okay. I was still having this really awful abdominal pain - I've had it for months now, and it's always there, there's never a time when it stops - but I was good enough to go home and finish out my antibiotics at home. So I did.

About a week and a half later, I had to call an ambulance again to go to the hospital because I had those exact same symptoms.

indiemcemopants

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Tuesday November 08, 2011 · 10:32 AM PST

2011/11/08 · 10:32

For weeks now, antigay groups like the National Organization for Marriage have been pouring money into the election in Iowa and stirring up homophobic sentiments among the right wing voters in the state in a desperate attempt to win votes for Republicans and erode the progress that LGBTs have made in the state. Last week it was noted that NOM spent $37,000 on behalf of the Republican candidate. The Republican candidate herself has tried to distance herself from these groups. But as ThinkProgress tells us:

Cindy Golding, the Republican candidate in Iowa’s special state Senate election, initially sought to distance herself from the question of same-sex marriage by speaking out against meddling from outside interest groups and saying that she supports a popular vote on the issue in order to focus the state on more pressing economic concerns. But with poll numbers showing her running behind Democrat Liz Mathis, Golding is now actively courting the support of the state’s radical anti-gay conservatives and will accept their endorsement during an event today — on the eve of the state’s special election[.]

So it's no surprise when these fringe elements crawl out of the woodwork for everyone to see:

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OMG

Becoming those we have feared

Has anyone looked at you like this before?

Mitt Romney is apparently okay with DADT repeal

Some more news from my doctor appointment

"Your dreams are kind of shattered"

Things really do change sometimes

A quick update on my surgery yesterday

An update on my health + a note

The 'rich gays' myth, one more time

I have bad news

Disturbing antigay robocall in Iowa asks about gay sex